Paper: Ambassador Cepov to be recalled

Apr 13, 2005
By The Baltic Times

VILNIUS 's A leading daily, citing unnamed sources in Moscow, wrote on Wednesday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is likely to recall the ambassador to Lithuania after his unprecedented remarks.

The Lietuvos Rytas daily said that Russian Ambassador Boris Cepov irritated his boss, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after the former unleashed a tirade against Lithuanians in an interview to a local paper.

An informed Russian official told Lietuvos Rytas that Cepov's verbal assault against Lithuania was a defensive reaction in an effort to avoid a possible recall.

Earlier in March the paper reported that Cepov might be recalled from Vilnius for failing to convince President Valdas Adamkus to go to Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.

The ambassador responded to the article by an angry public letter, accusing the daily of spoiling bilateral relations.

Later, in an interview to the Respublika daily, Cepov said he had a feeling that Lithuania "is not a country but a place for rally of scandal-living brawlers."

According to the daily, there has already been a premature recall of Cepov from the office of ambassador in Kenya in 2000, after the diplomat "assessed and analyzed the situation in the country in an inappropriate way."

Following the Russian diplomat's statement about Lietuvos Rytas, Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Albinas Januska publicly stated that he cannot imagine how the diplomat will work as ambassador in Lithuania in the future.

Lavrov has allegedly dismissed his offensive public letter to Lietuvos Rytas' editor-in-chief as inappropriate, and the attack against Lithuania has extremely irritated the Russian foreign minister, the source told the paper.

However, according to Lietuvos Rytas, Cepov has at least partially achieved his goal. "Although the Russian Foreign Ministry considers the ambassador's recall to be virtually settled, Moscow will now be forced to try to remain dignified. Therefore, such recall is possible in a few months at the earliest," the paper wrote.

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